Human Computer Interaction Lab

HCI Lab aims for new user interface paradigms through the development of novel interaction devices for smart information devices, wearable computers, and smart environments, and new interaction techniques using them. Key research topics that we recently focus on are text entry interfaces, touch-based interfaces, tactile displays, wearable input devices, and AR / VR input devices. Our text entry studies started in 2005 with a new text entry interface for feature phones, and are continued with text entry methods for smart watches, smart glasses, and VR environments. Our touch-based interface studies started from 2010 with the motivation to increase the input vocabulary of the touchscreen by using additional physical events that accompany touch operations, such as hovering, impact, vertical force and horizontal force. We thereby expanded a touchscreen from a 2-state input device to a 4-state input device, and are continuing to search for new possibilities in the expanded input space. Tactile feedback studies began as an essential element to enhance the fidelity of touch interaction in the course of touch interface research. Beginning with the button-like feedback study in 2013, tactile displays for wearable devices and tactile displays utilizing heterogeneous tactile stimuli are currently being studied. The HCI laboratory was introduced in length in the ACM Interactions in the Day in the Lab column (March 2015). Our research results are being presented in the major HCI conferences such as ACM CHI, ACM UIST, and ACM ISS, and also in major HCI journals such as IJHCS, IJHCI, and IWC.